A Study In Friendship
by Joey Joyless
Summary: Set in the Adventures Of Young Sherlock Holmes universe a year after the end of the movie, this is a collection of oneshots, drabbles and musings from the journal of one future Dr. Watson as he and Holmes endeavor to make their way through the world. Will contain canon-typical crime, violence and drug use. No pairings.
1. A Musing On Grief And The Lack Thereof

I have often wondered if perhaps my friend ever truly knew how to grieve, or if he grieved at all.

That is to say, I know Sherlock Holmes to be fully capable of feeling all the emotions that faded from him like diluting ink on paper with water. Before that night on the river Thames I had seen the full range of it from him, subdued though it could often be, and though he grew colder after that winter, I knew surely the loss must be weighing on him. His ventures into stopping true crime had succeeded at the cost of innocent life. Any man would surely feel a mixture of defeat and loss if nothing else. And no matter what he himself would later come to embody, there was never a moment in our lives I thought him heartless.

But grief and grieving are not the same. Though something might have been there, he was not one to discuss it, nor was he willing to go through acts of mourning that might have been expected. He did not play sad songs upon his violin, simply challenging himself to more difficult pieces as time went by. I never saw him linger over the things she had left him, though he did not discard them, either; they went to the back of his trunk and were not touched, yet he no more avoided the topic than the rain avoided clouds. When it was brought up by our mutual acquaintances he knew how to bow his head a fraction and look to the ground for just a hair's breadth longer than a second, an act of sadness that satisfied most that he was privately saddened. I knew better than to mistake his well rehearsed movements for signs he was giving the topic real thought and really coming to terms with what occurred.

I don't presume to know what goes on in Holmes' head. To look into his gray eyes is to see only a reflection of the lighting, and his words often only complicated matters rather than clarifying them. It would be a rare moment indeed when those unfamiliar with him could see through the obfuscation to the kernels of truth. Even I struggled with it at first. It was only when a year passed that I realized Holmes had not spoken of her, of the failing that had hit him so hard as to change his attitude towards crime forever, of the death he could have prevented. In the unspoken things one will find as much to Holmes' character as in the unspoken, if not more. He was a changed man but not a man in mourning, not a grieving person but someone attempting to be something different, unfeeling and mechanical.

To be sure, this methodology helped the first case we ventured on as a pair, sans outside help. There was a way he broke down every detail of a man from a look with the authority in his voice of a professional that seemed to unnerve people. The unreadable expressions no doubt aided us and helped us fight off the disadvantage of our young age. At first I thought it was an affectation Holmes' was managing to pull off even during the lull between crimes.

When it struck me that if anything, the sighs and downward tilt of the head he did to indicate loss was the falsehood, I was left with the bitter realization that Elizabeth Hardy had not been the only innocent to die during his first case.


	2. Of Roses And Rebuilding What Was Lost

**Author's Note:** A heartfelt thank you to my first reviewer! I was surprised at the speed that review came in, and I'm glad to find someone else interested in this adaption of Sherlock Holmes. And thank you as well to those who have read without reviewing - your support is felt all the same.

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><p>The one thing that had not changed with time was the ingenuity of my companion.<p>

I arrived to find him back in school and did not ask what his family had done to secure his place in such a prestigious school in London, though I gathered that the Headmaster had sent out letters of recommendation on his behalf and those still held weight, even if Holmes had broken a number of rules and said Headmaster was now dead. When I tried to probe further he gave me the one word answer of 'Mycroft', as if the mere name of his brother should explain this in full. I knew next to nothing about Holmes' family life, only that he had a brother, parents and a house well outside London somewhere. He was not given to discussing his family even in his better days, so I resigned myself to the inexplicable reappearance of Holmes' in the boys' dormitories as one of those things that simply was. Even the other boys seemed unsurprised to find him there after a few moments of confusion. After a fashion, we settled into our places, taking up the daily routine of school that we knew so well.

But for Holmes, no such place would do for investigations, for true work. He made it clear to me he wanted to continue his work, since his already shaky faith in Scotland Yard had been rendered nonexistent by the events of the last winter. There would seem, at a glance, two dual problems standing in the way of him being able to find a work space both private and accessible. Firstly, the staff was vigilant and the students many; getting in and out of the building and on and off the grounds without being caught was not a task easily managed. Secondly, whatever place could be found, it would be impossible to finance even a small area to call his own and protect it from being burglarized. These two things collided, and I found myself set about on several rather odd tasks without even exchanging pleasantries. He simply instructed me on what was no doubt part of a plan as if we had done a hundred such things and would do a hundred more with time.

Keeping in mind this was the before the gravity of how thoroughly he did not process Elizabeth's death had hit me, I asked him if he was really up for this sort of thing right now.

He looked at me blankly. "Today is as good a day as any; doubtless we'll finish before the week's end. We've tarried long enough as it is, Watson."

This was the sort of thing I would eventually become used to from him, and so I went about doing as he asked, making note of what, to me, seemed the most absurd of details. The good news was that when one of the tasks was to gather a bit of personal information from one of the cooking staff, I was able to find her a delightful and chatty woman, who allowed me to take some food for Holmes, whose lanky physique had worsened to a strange kind of thinness over out time apart. She had noticed it as well, though Holmes himself hadn't. Even during the first case he ever undertook, he had ignored the dinner Elizabeth had brought up for him, engrossed in his work. If it were not stopped soon, there was no doubt in my mind this was to become a pattern, for him. It might have already been. Regardless, having talked to three oddly specific members of the staff and obtained answers to questions Holmes hadn't seen fit to tell me why I was asking, I found him in the dormitories reading a thick book that he was writing notes in, in the margins. He set it aside when I cleared my throat.

Whatever he had been about to say, the large fruit tart gave him pause. "You can't possibly be hungry," he stated, doing the figures in his head. "Your intake has been its' usual and without variance since you arrived, even figuring in your dislike for certain dishes the cooks prepare."

"You haven't eaten all day," I pointed out to him, somehow unsurprised by the look of confusion that crossed his face, as if I were pointing out something as irrelevant as the color of the sky. He'd had a book in front of him along with a map at breakfast and managed to vanish during lunch, coming back with a hint of a smug smile that gave me hope some of my old friend was in there. "You'll get your answers only if you eat a bit. It's the least you can do after having me spend my day chatting up strangers."

"That is ridiculous." He waited for me to continue. I did not so much as blink until he held out his hands. "I am perfectly capable of eating a surplus amount at dinner to account for the loss in nutrition, Watson. This was… unnecessary."

There was a waver to the last word, a change in his voice that might have been the start of a halted thanks or expression of gratitude. Did his parents, his brother, their help never see to such a mundane thing? The concept seemed almost foreign to him. Whatever the case was, I chose to take it as proof that for all his intelligence he was at some level still capable of being unsure of himself, if only in glimpses. It was the first hint of such a thing I'd seen in him since we had reunited. Thus far he had been recast in steel, fire-forged by the night on the river and the time spent afterwards in the solitude he seemed so naturally inclined to seek out. The edge to him had become sharper and the armor thicker, though it would be take our first case together for me to see just how he had been reshaped.

For now, he ate slow, methodical bites of what had been brought as I gave him the answers, interrupting only for minutiae I hadn't clarified. One had to grow used to Holmes' interruptions, for the devil was in the details and he knew to look through each one carefully.

"Excellent. Watson, we may soon have a way on and off the grounds at our disposal. My suspicions of Ms. White having an affair with the groundskeeper is confirmed, and I believe a deal can be brokered with that information, particularly if – what is it?"

He must have noticed I was staring at him, my mouth slightly agape. "How on Earth did you reach that conclusion? Or even suspect – Holmes, he is at least twenty years her junior! Do you know what you're suggesting?"

"Nineteen, not twenty," he corrected casually, setting the half-eaten food down. "Ms. White is not the one tasked with delivering food to Mr. Thornton, but she has volunteered for the position. Ostensibly it is because she fears for her health and feels walking will do it good. However, I have attended this school longer than you, and can attest she has never had an ill day anyone can remember. An impressive feat, at her age, one which lends itself to the camouflage of innocent walks rather readily. For his part, Mr. Thornton has been unusually helpful to her, another thing most would attribute to what everyone _is_ attributing it to: her age. However, age does not beget roses, Watson."

"And where, in my discussing the cooks' living quarters and the cleaning and upkeep of the school, did you get any hint of roses?" At this point I sat down, fascinated by his ability to piece things together yet still holding my doubts. For one, that was an impressive leap to make, and for another, my young, admittedly naïve mind had never heard of such a young man pursuing a woman of her age unless she was wealthy, and there was no wealth between the two worth noting.

"The school storeroom is large, large enough the untrained eye would not notice a few things missing. I know, as I've readily been using them myself since I first learned to pick the lock. The extra chemistry ingredients were always of use when I wanted to spend some time conducting experiments of my own, and the professor there does trust me, though I suppose now that may have changed. Regardless, when I checked that there was not a new lock in place and things were still unlocked within the room, I noticed a vase was missing, one of the porcelain ones that is not impressive enough to display or shabby enough to cast off. That same day, four roses were absent from the rose bushes and, as you confirmed in talking to the staff, Ms. White was out for one of her walks. Taking into account that all groundskeepers have keys to such storerooms, it is the perfect gift from a man with little in the means of money. I once had the overly complex and, in my opinion, frivolous and useless meanings of flowers explained to me, and the color of the roses cut does not suggest anything platonic.

But also note, Watson, that the shoes Ms. White wears in her walks never appear terribly dirty, as if she were actually spending a portion of that walk indoors. By contrast, I daresay the school has never seen a groundskeeper more devout in his attendance of near daily mass, suggesting guilt. Having watched him since he arrived, there is no vice he shows signs of, and also no outward signs of any other romantic interest, an unusual thing in a man with his looks and age. The church going suggests guilt – for a love that may conflict with his views of the world, or may have already been consummated outside of marriage. Regardless, I also noticed some chalk had gone missing from the storeroom, and smears of chalk, innocuous enough to the untrained eye, appear upon his door on certain days."

I rubbed my temples. We had been back a scant two weeks, and already Sherlock had put together the pieces of yet another person's private life. I looked at him with mixed feelings. Yes, it was true that I wanted to help him in his endeavors to succeed where Scotland Yard failed, especially knowing he would attempt to do so without my help if I refused. Of course I desired that we should do some good in this world, if for no other reason than because unlike Holmes, I at least had allowed myself to grieve Elizabeth, in private, in dark nights of the soul where I had turned over my decisions and found myself lacking in a time I had been needed. The problem I had was simply in blackmailing two people in love. Though I admit at that age to being a bit scandalized by the idea of the couple having already been in bed with each other without marrying – forgive me, dear readers, for I was in many ways still a child as much as I was a man – the idea of holding it against them left a bad taste in my mouth. To use ill-gotten knowledge was one thing as I had seen Sherlock do so for the greater good before. To use it to cut down people who were already having a rough go of things seemed vile.

"So," Sherlock clapped his hands, standing up. "When we help them keep their secret better, I am of no doubt that that would constitute a fair trade to give us freedom to leave and be vouched for if discovered. Should that not work, we shall have to see what can be done with the Latin professor and his continual petty thefts of library books, though I doubt it will amount to much."

I surprised both of us by laughing. He was so steady and methodical in his speaking, and doubtless he would deny it if ever I gave voice to it, but underneath the hardening casing of the new Sherlock Holmes was a spark of the old, a glimmer of the very human emotion of love he himself had once known. Unable to explain myself, I told him to finish his food before we set out to do anything, aware he found me as strange as I found him.

Though in years to come he would develop a reputation to the contrary, Holmes was not as cold as even he, I think, would like to believe.


	3. Late Night Leads

**Author's Note:** Squeaking by at eleven at night, this is just barely on time for my daily schedule I set up. The thing of it was, I had no idea where to take this bit. I needed to hit a few keywords and pieces of information to set up ideas that will come into play later, but I feel like we're retreading territory with Holmes' eating habits here. I hope the repetition will be lessened by the rest of the chapter being different from the last.

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><p>Holmes' blinked up as the world presumably came back into focus, a look as close to outright surprise as I'd ever seen on his face.<p>

"What happened, Watson? Were we attacked?"

The mixture of emotions this provoked in me was twofold. One was relief, for it meant his mind was still on this rather ridiculous case we had undertaken with no refuge proper in London and barely a way off the school grounds. The other was annoyance that his genius mind could have slipped up on something so simple to such a stunning degree. I am sure Holmes can count on one hand the times I knew something he didn't, but he did recognize that was what was happening when I continued to look at him as I helped him up. Though the seasons had seen fit to give me a good three inches of height, they'd given him one more than that, and as always he was a head taller than everyone in class. What had not happened was his proportions changing in correct response to his height; he was overly thin and one didn't need to be the doctor I aspired to in order to see what was going on.

Yet his gray eyes, while showing wheels were turning within his head, were coupled with an expression that betrayed no results. With what I now know to be the start of a very regular, long suffering sigh I had what would become an extremely common conversation with him.

"You forgot to eat," I said in explanation, and he dismissed it at once.

"A skipped meal has never produced this result before-"

"Holmes, what day do you think this is?"

"…Tuesday?"

"Thursday," I corrected him, a bit harsher than I intended to. By God, had he given me a scare, talking with his usual rapid pace as he explained the evidence Scotland Yard wasn't noticing before fading off mid-word. At this point I'd thought I was getting used to his quirks, for being his friend was a strangely worthwhile endeavor despite the danger we got into (Holmes would later argue it was _because_ of the danger we got into) but this, this was too much. "Come on, then. We're not going around London at this hour with a repeat performance just around the bend."

Something hardened in his expression, a change I couldn't quite properly define. "We're on the edge of success. I can feel it. This man is a murderer, Watson. I'm not turning back just because of physical limitations I can overcome with mental fortitude."

He began walking out of the alley I'd dragged him into to avoid the night's few passengers, though with his height one long stride for him was several for myself. Catching up to him, I had a horrible sinking sense in my stomach, one of knowing the root of the problem while knowing that voicing it would not make things any better. If anything, to point out the reason a murderer was his first real case after we'd been reunited would make him put up walls. Holmes' was in possession of two deflections for the matter of Elizabeth's death; one was a feigned sorrow that did not even begin to touch true emotion. The other was a voice of ice and a lack of reaction that informed our classmates he was not the Sherlock Holmes they once thought they knew.

I caught his sleeve as a thought occurred to me. "The market two blocks over – that would be most likely where he's getting the laudanum he's using on his victims, wouldn't it?"

"Why would he go there in particular?" Holmes was playing along, still focused or perhaps irritated. "It's primarily a typical wares and food set up, the likes of which is hardly about to produce any high quality laudanum. No doubt a man in the market repeatedly going about such a task would be marked an addict soon enough and thus be on Lestrade's list of suspects, which we have already ruled out of having any validity. A man smart enough to prey upon desperately ill people would be smart enough to have a servant of some sort go fetch it for him… near where he _lived_ so as not to arouse _their_ suspicion…"

"Because it is, first and foremost, a food market," I finished for him. "And thus it would be an ordinary list for the one shopping, but not one they could trace to him. It'd look like the list of a sick man himself."

"Blast," he muttered under his breath, finally halting. I was starting to get winded, following someone of his speed and focus. "Your attempt to distract me into going to where you could persuade me to eat – very well done, if a bit lacking in execution, Watson – may have us an entirely viable new lead. But the market's closed by now, surely. Even the later-standing stalls are no doubt shut. We'll have to come back in the morning and see what we can make of it. It fits perfectly into place with the location of the victims, save one. Perhaps that one was a more personal matter than the rest." Holmes spun on his heel. "Come, I need to go study my map of the area again and review some notes."

"And eat," I put in, but he was already striding in the other direction, lost deeply in thought and completely oblivious to anything else I had to say.

Pinching my nose, I prayed silently that he would at least take 'morning' to mean 'after breakfast'.


	4. The Four Who Were Failed

Sherlock had never been an intimidating figure, not like this.

He had let himself into the murderer's house with myself trailing behind. Lord knows I had tried to discuss this with him rationally, get him to go to Scotland Yard, but he preferred to handle things his own way. The morning was cold and gray, sky overcast and making shadows where there shouldn't have been, and Holmes' plan was simple enough under the provision that he stuck to it. No one could ever accuse him of being foolish, but in those younger years, with wounds still fresher than he would admit to, with no allies to speak of in the law, there was a difference to him. With the knowledge no one even knew we were here he was both emboldened and forced to turn to more subtle plans.

I assure you that there _was_ in fact a subtle plan. He just abandoned it when he saw the empty laudanum bottles hidden poorly in the trash, and then we went from creeping around a house very oddly vacant of staff to me trailing behind him as he made his way up to the right room, guided by the fragments of knowledge he always fit together correctly, and he shoved the door to the master bedroom open. I'm not sure who was more taken aback by this brazenness, myself or the criminal, one Alexander Westlake, but Holmes seized the opening.

"Don't bother to call Scotland Yard – we've already sent for them, they'll be here shortly to arrest you for the murders of Anne Miller, Rosalind Cunningham, Victoria DeLise and Ingrid Claudole. You see, your housekeep, Ms. Riley was called away today. A note of some urgency, very vague and fortunately for her, fake; I only needed to just enough to get her out of here while we settle this." He half-turned his head to me, eyes locked upon the man before him. "Watson, lock the door. The windows are not viable exits; the key is under the tablecloth on the side table. It always is with such houses."

The man, now on his feet, was trying not to look unnerved. This was a hard task, for Holmes had begun speaking with such coldness and factual recitation in their voice as I had never heard before. The fact that he was roughly Holmes' height leveled their gazes at each other. Though Alexander Westlake was a man of not immodest means, he dressed as if he were in poor physical condition, a ruse he had ruined by jumping to his feet and then stepping back, looking wildly around the room for something to defend himself with. His face was riddled with confusion and the fear of being caught, but there was no guilt in his eyes or the way he held himself. He had no doubt done the deed, dear readers, but he felt nothing for his crimes.

If this was evident to me with my limited skills, then I considered what conclusions Holmes might be drawing from other objects in the room, things that might have passed for innocent glass bottles if there wasn't some sort of pitch black laudanum derivative in them, the normally faint bitter smell of it surprisingly strong. Holmes nudged one such glass with his foot, without looking.

"'Luxor Winter's Magic Tonic, black as night to wash you white as snow'. I hope you didn't write that terrible little advert on your own, or pick out such a name as to match your proper initials intentionally," Holmes said with something just a few shades too dark to be nonchalance. "Though it will make Scotland Yard's arrest of you much easier, I had hoped for a smarter mind behind this, that there might be some possible _reason_ for you to have handed out poison to women and mediocre medicine to men. You must try not to sell so close to your home, Mr. Westlake. It does little good to disguise yourself in the evenings when your ingredients come from the same place in the morning."

"How-"

"There's an intriguing young woman, one Hazel Claudole. Very young, very sickly, yet not as stupid as her sister might have been. She recognized the similarity between the names and after Watson did some coaxing, was able to produce an old bottle, not yet emptied. I'm having her write in to Scotland Yard so this will all be very clear, very cut and dry. You are not going to have any outs from this. You don't _deserve_ any." Holmes took several steps forward and the man shrunk back. Where had my friend gone, and who was this tall lookalike in his place with clinched fists that turned the knuckles white from stress and a voice like a blade? "I have investigated many minor and old cases for Scotland Yard. One man withstanding, I have their attention when I call them to a crime. And yet, in the past, I have let some men walk free. Do you know why, Mr. Westlake?"

He shook his head, slowly.

Holmes continued with barely a pause. "I have found in some cases the victim of a crime to be a person of such malice and vindictive rage that they provoked their attacker. I have found thieves whose situation was so desperate I would have taken what they did. I have even found a singular murder case I let go, because it was only to save herself that the woman killed her husband. But you? What reason did you have to do what you did? Why would you even conceive of a plan?" In the silence that followed, he snapped, "Answer me, if you are to have any chance of saving yourself!"

None of this was in the plan. Our plan had been to lock him up in his own room without his knowing, leaving him for Scotland Yard. We were not to have made contact with this man, and certainly not engaged him in conversation. But I believe that moment was valuable to me, for it showed me exactly what my friend could have been, and what he chose not to be. In this moment I learned he had found guilty more than one person before who he had the mercy to release when I was not so sure Scotland Yard or Lestrade would have. It had always been my assumption that Holmes needed the validation of his conclusions as much as the thrill of the chase and seeking of evidence. Yet here he stood, in defiance of common sense, demanding an explanation for the inexplicable, ready even after the bodies and his encounter with Rathe that rightly should have ripped out all traces of a heart from him to hear a reason for this.

Only much, much later did I understand that Holmes knew there wasn't one. He'd _wanted_ one, wanted to believe evil was not as common as he was beginning to see it could be, wanted there to be something he missed that could turn this into something that made sense. To a mind never at rest, something without a true motive, even a sick and twisted one, was just too much to take. Cases without explanations haunted him. In the wake of the silence it grew truly evident there was no reason to it, no connection we had missed. The girls at the market happened to be sickly, naïve, young and female. That was why they were targets. That would be the end of it for Scotland Yard.

It was not the end of it for Holmes, whose eyes locked onto a family portrait on the wall. "An older sister. Not much older; a year, two perhaps, judging by your school clothes. Interesting that you and your younger sister are wearing items that conceal more skin than others in the family – hiding injuries, or simply old scars?" He turned back to the man. "Show me your arm."

"You're a madman," Mr. Westlake snapped, wrapping his arms around himself, as if the question had broken him. "I was keeping those girls' families safe. No one believes it when the fairer sex strikes out against a man or even one another, no one ever takes it seriously until it's too late and you're afraid of your own food because you don't know what she put in it!"

"You'll find no argument as to the resourcefulness of the fairer sex with me. However, none of these girls were your older sister. You cannot rage against half the world for the actions of one person, and as to your 'protection' of their siblings? I have had to slip notes to both of Hazel Claudole's parents. It seems the loss of her sister has made her quite suicidal." When Mr. Westlake recoiled, all blood draining from his face, Holmes said with a dark sense of congratulations, "How else do you think we found an unattended nine year old built like sticks willing to give us the information we needed? She was looking for you to buy your poison. You have made young children want to die in your efforts to save them. Very well done, Mr. Westlake. You are a credit to the male race and brothers everywhere, undoubtedly."

Downstairs, there was thumping on the doors. Holmes looked to me, then to the key in my hand. I had been so entranced by the transformation from calm to a fury worthy of the eye of the storm I had forgotten to lock the door entirely. His expression was like it had been when he fought Rathe. It did not change as he turned, directing me with a hand to follow him as Scotland Yard arrived on the scene.

They were unsurprised to see Holmes there. But Holmes was surprised when one of them pointed out he'd clenched his fist so hard his nails had broken skin, creating four small red cuts.

One for each girl he had not saved in time.


End file.
